In A Girl’s Story, A. Ernaux ends the fragmented story of her adolescence with the revelation that she was assaulted the first time she had sex. This event, the repetition and outcome of childhood traumas whose sexual origin is diluted by the author in the socius, triggers a phenomenon of passionate control laden with symptoms. Subjectivation through literary sublimation is both the subject matter and matrix of this work, and transforming the control into a cultural object that can be shared.

Adolescence, 2024, 42, 1, 71-85.